Chapter Twenty-Two:

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They left Xan’Mara that day. They left it to its bloodbath, battles, and civil war; knowing who the victor was before it even began. The screams of battle cries in the gust of their wake and the explosion of rainbows in their memory.

Dommik took a long drag from one of his stashed cigars and savored the earthy flavor, releasing the puff into the air where it vanished within the ventilation. After he left Kat, he had Bin-Three deliver her a new wristlet, one that had access to the entirety of the ship.

He waited for her to find him, letting her make the choice to remain or go, forcing himself to give up some of his control. He didn’t know what to do, all of it was unfamiliar territory.

They left Trentian airspace less than a week later, passing through the invisible walls of one sector to another, drifting through the grey in-between until reentering home territory. The Earthian zone of control was a general third of the galaxy and was only distinguished by who ruled what port, planet, and colony on the outskirts. Disregarding those few places where the two species ruled in equal measure.

A week.

Every minute that went by drove him a little crazier. He waited for her to wander, to test out where the wristlet worked, to regain a modicum of curiosity back but she didn’t. She remained to her regimen and far away from him. Dommik wanted her to see the engraved, forever yours, on the inside.

A week that left him burning through cigars, and repairing the parts of him that stuck. He opened his tech and tweaked his circuits, cleaned up his wires, and reforged the metal pieces that didn’t match up. He worked tirelessly when she was off-shift, taking care of the creatures on board, cutting off the requests the EPED made and answering them himself during the break.

He fed the flower blood each night.

And put his new roach in its own enclosure.

When he found himself storming to confront her, lurking in the corners out of her line of sight, feeding his want by eating her up with his eyes, he would tear into his man-made webbing and rip it to shreds. He would then pick up the pieces and retie them back together.

Dommik had never felt more imprisoned. Not even when he was buried underground on a dead world.

He watched her from the shadows. He watched her eyes regain some of their gleam, the soft blush of her flesh find its color again, her copper curls growing out to drift over her shoulders. He watched and yearned as she tried to converse with his androids, he watched her watching the creatures thriving in their habitats, he watched as she worked. Every sigh she released was his, every stretch, every time her fingers brushed through her hair. He watched.

Until his need grew into something animalistic, something possessive bordering a dark path he did not want to go down but it called to him anyway, every day.

A week became two and each day lasted an eternity, each second a crazed agony. They were due to arrive at Earth within the next fortnight, pending any last minute missions.

He extinguished his cigar and tried to contact Stryker, again, only to receive no answer, and finding no answer nor call back from Gunner, he became worried.

The EPED had notified him both agents had gone silent within the last several weeks. They hadn’t given Dommik a search and rescue mission as of yet but it had come to the point that he was going after them after the drop-off.

They hadn’t died, he knew because he was still able to locate their IP addresses when seeding through the network. They were just not answering. He didn’t like being out of the loop if something major was going down.

At least it would get my mind off of her. Dommik scowled. Off of everything.

Patience had never been a virtue he struggled with. That was the spider in him, however, it was getting harder and harder to deal with her absence. He turned back to his ropes and weaved a new web across the bridge.

He was stiff, on edge, and at the pinnacle of his own destruction when the security feed flashed. Her presence moved toward the elevator. He let go of the frayed rope and watched.

Finally.

***

Kat felt cold as she twisted her new wristlet around, keeping her hand busy while she surfed the network and passed her time. She would’ve continued to drum her fingers except that they felt bruised and tender from so much typing.

She read up on anything and everything that presented itself. There was always some ‘new’ breakthrough, a new planet that was habitable, a new cure, new technology, and sometimes there was a tragic death of someone important, murders, a smuggling ring being brought down.

Nothing kept her attention anymore.

What she didn’t find was any news about the aliens, what they were doing, what was happening on the other side of the galaxy. Sure, there were the broad strokes, dignitaries shaking hands, and reform for the half-breeds but she found next to nothing about the Space Lords, and nothing about rebel sects and internal fighting.

Kat tensed. Her back stiffened and she knew she was being watched. She tried not to look around and find him, she didn’t want to see him.

I don’t want to see him. Her palms settled on her stomach and smoothed out her shirt. She kept her hands busy because if she didn’t they would be rubbing her belly, looking for something that wasn’t there yet. She hadn’t begun to show yet and as long as she continued taking the pills Dommik gave her, her aches stayed away.

Dommik. Kat wanted to see him but hated herself for admitting it. He hadn’t approached her since they left Xan’Mara and she made no effort to find him.

She was just cold. Numb.

Or had been, until Earth was on the horizon and the thought of the open air filling her lungs made her excited. She caressed her stomach and sat back, blinking the screen from her eyes.

Will you be an Earth baby? She cooed to it in her mind. Her love for it growing by the second, already attached to her unborn child. It wasn’t the parasite she was terrified of anymore. She had something in her now that she would die for, something beautiful and new, that she would go to the ends of the universe and back for.

She hated Dommik almost as much as she loved him. He had given her everything she wanted, needed, an adventure, a chance to grieve, and even a way to get over her paranoia. Kat glanced at the roach room. His methods were flawed but they were his and he was hers.

It was enough. It felt like everything. And it burned as the cold thawed.

Kat found herself walking to the elevator, hoping her wristlet would work. It did.

It was hard to breathe as she rode to the upper decks in silence, butterflies–no–Molucs filled her belly. The doors opened and she walked through the familiar passage past the alcove and its beautiful stars, past the medbay where the reader still sat on the table, further yet until the passageway opened up. She leaned to each new closed door to see if her wristlet would open them and wondered and wandered as nothing was barred off to her.

A maze of shadows and empty rooms lay around her and the cage she built around herself opened up a little bit more with each step forward.

Kat came across a lank of rope lying on the floor. It ended somewhere deep within the darkness beyond her sight. Her stomach flipped as she picked it up and tugged, finding no give in the cord.

She peered into the gloom as she pulled it again. Nothing.

“Dommik?” she called out.

Her face scrunched as she followed the rope’s source, rolling it up over her arm as she went. It was smooth in her hands, well-used, with only the occasional knot she didn’t stop to untie. The remaining doors forgotten.

The next light illuminated a lowered ceiling.

Not a lowered ceiling, she frowned, looking up at the crisscrossing pattern. More rope.

Kat reached up and pulled but it remained stiff above her and retained its shape. The same rope that’s around my arm.

“Dommik!?” she yelled.

She thought about turning back although she knew she wouldn’t. Her need for answers bloomed within her and blurred out the rest. Safety wasn’t an issue on the ship. Only her misgivings were.

The pattern above her began to bleed out onto the walls on either side until it was so thick the walls were hidden. The dimness of the passageway petered close to black, the low-lights buried beneath. She gripped the ropes to find them, only to find her failure.

Kat jumped as a tendril fell and hit her shoulder. Her heart beat to the roar of a drum in her chest, filling her body with an uncontrollable need to shake it off, to shake everything off.

What the Hell. What. The. Fuck? She resumed her pace with an adrenaline-fueled skip and continued forward. She wasn’t afraid of the dark nor was she afraid of tight spaces but as the thick threading enclosed around her, a rush of horror took the place of her curiosity. She found herself ducking and weaving through the ropes on all sides and as she went the smoothness of their length disappeared and was replaced by tears and frays.

The loose strands tickled against her like a thousand bugs crawling all over her body. And no matter how much she rubbed at her arms, her hair, her face, the feeling wouldn’t go away.

A light appeared, casting a shadow against the clogging ropes, and the patterning askew. Kat rushed forward with her stomach in her throat.

Clawing, grasping, tugging, and panting until she reached the end.

Her eyes jumped around to stare at the room before her, the helm of the ship, the bridge, as her palms continued to brush off the invisible critters dancing on her skin.

A web. It’s a web. Her eyes caught hold of something large moving above her.

Eight limbs, four arms, and four legs crawled from the corner with a thick length of long, silky black hair. Her back hit the bulky wall.

A face that looked like a skull, inhuman, with an extended metal jaw came next.

Sharp, dagger-like teeth flashed at her, dripping venom at the mouth only to pull taut at sun-bleached, phantom-like skin. It crept until it was directly overhead and the hair she knew so well fell in front of her.

“Dommik,” Kat whispered to the-not-quite-a-spider, not-quite-a-man monstrosity staring down at her. “Come down,” she gulped. “And talk to me.” Her bladder had never felt so heavy.

The jaw shifted back into a beautifully tragic face.

“You’re not afraid of me?” he snarled, his deep voice no more than a hiss between metal teeth.

Her gut flipped. “Should I be?” She squeezed her hands into fists, refusing to look away from him. “Is this...this is why I’m not allowed above? I understand now. I’m not afraid of you.” Kat reached up and brushed her fingers through his hair to cup his head and pull him down to her. “Please come down.”

She watched as Dommik’s jaw shifted back into his head, soon followed by his legs that in turn landed like thunder before her, his extra arms went next until he was wholly humanoid again. Kat reached out to him but pulled her hands away, uncertain.

“That is my true form. My other half that powers a third of my mind, body, and machinery. I’m a spider. A Cyborg. A man. And each part of me, each piece of me wants to control. My DNA is not human and the child I seeded inside of you will not be entirely human as well.”

Kat instinctively rounded her belly. “Will it be unwell?” The question tasted sour on her tongue. The thought of her baby being sickly scared her.

He crouched to his knees his arms rested over his thighs as he looped the cord around his palm. “No. It has nanocells running through its veins. Our baby will be perfect and if we’re lucky will have your hair and your eyes.”

Kat felt relieved and stifled at the same time. “I like your hair and eyes too.”

Dommik smirked up at her with a devilish twist. “Thank you.”

She released her breath and stepped away from him to wander around the helm. The panoramic view of the universe was left alone as she eyed the console and the captain’s chair with worn leather caved in. It was dark like the rest of the ship but was brightened by the stars and the same silver aura. The webbing was all around her but unlike the rest of the passageway, there were piles of unused rope about and cigar butts lying in a tray. Kat could feel Dommik’s eyes on her as she explored.

She turned full circle but was unable to find a second door. “How do your androids get to you?”

“They don’t. They can’t right now. The hallway is barred off and has been these past two weeks.”

Kat turned to him. “Because of me?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“I know. I was hoping you would come to me sooner. The wait has been miserable but now...now you’ve seen all of me.” His hand waved around the room. “I have nothing left to hide.”

She looked around the space again and up at the intricate webbing. At the dips and grooves between numerous metal brackets and the bizarre geometrical shapes throughout. It was beautiful and dreadful. But as she continued to stare at it, she found that she wasn’t afraid of it or of him. It made her sad.

“Is this why you’re alone?”

Dommik stood up and came to her. “No.”

“Then why?”

“I hate the way people smell.”

Kat looked down at herself. “What? Do I smell bad?”

He laughed as he pulled her horrified form into his arms. “Stop asking that. You smell exotic, unusual, nice. I like it. I love you.”

Ugh. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He lifted her chin to look up at him. His eyes hollow and hopeful. “Will you stay with me? Here, on this ship, and we’ll raise our child together. I’ll take the webbing down, take only the easy missions, I'll take care of us.”

Kat gnawed on her lip. “That’s just it, Dommik, I came to tell you I quit.”